Scrambled output from diff

[Roddie]

I'm having some trouble with diff.

I've used it on occasions to see what changes have been made to a file
before committing, so that I can include a sensible comment.

But the output is scrambled. For example I've just got

"Declare vars stalocal:'myCount't= (integer);aram:'-component');');"

which is gibberish. For example, the characters "myCount" do not appear in
the file before "-component" only afterwards. This sort of scrambling
happens quite often.

The actual files are fine. It's just diff that scrambles its report.

Repository is on Linux, CVS version 1.11.2. I'm accessing it through ext
(ssh) from Terminal on a Mac.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks

Roddie Grant